Regular Article

Stability of lauric acid at high pressure studied by Raman spectroscopy and picosecond acoustics

¹ Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, IRD, Institut de Minéralogie, de Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie, IMPMC, 75005 Paris, France
² Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Molécules Nanomatériaux, Interactions, Réactivité et Spectroscopies, MONARIS, 75005 Paris, France

^a e-mail: guilhem.simon@sorbonne-universite.fr

Received: 31 July 2018
Received in final form: 9 November 2018
Published online: 13 February 2019

Abstract

Lauric acid is commonly used as a coating agent which efficiently protects against oxidation and/or coalescence a set of inorganic nanocrystals obtained by chemical process. Its stability under pressure is likely to be informative on the stability and ordering of compressed supercrystals of nanocrystals. Therefore the elastic behaviour of lauric acid submitted to high pressures up to 25 GPa is studied. This elastic behavior has been probed by two complementary in situ techniques at high pressure: Raman spectroscopy and picosecond acoustics. Comparison between pressure-induced transformations as observed with the two techniques suggests that the lauric acid remains elastically stable above 2 GPa up to 25 GPa.